To Lose Her
by CastielAndTheBlueBox
Summary: TwoShot. It was never supposed to be her, he'd take a bullet for her any day and she didn't know. And here she was, lying below him, bleeding to death, and he still hadn't told her he loved her, dammit. Skyeward.
1. Skye

**_A/N: Well, this is me, getting into writing some of my planned fics, starting with Skyeward. Warning for character death in this one._**

It barely registered in her mind that the bullet was coming straight for her.

She'd been too busy trying to get out of the place to worry about silly little things like _bullets_ and the like, because she was certain they were out of the woods, they'd got the guy, after all, and that she therefore didn't have to watch out too much.

They always say that when you die, things go in slow motion, but Skye didn't find that at all. It was like, one moment she was just walking along, laughing and joking with Ward, and then it all just happened.

A bang.

A scream (she was sure it was Simmons).

An explosion of pain across her left shoulder.

Darkness.

* * *

_After missions, they would spend nights together, whispering gentle words and moving together, a well practised dance._

_One time, she tell him that she loves him._

_He doesn't say it back._

* * *

When she next wakes, she feels hazy, everything's fuzzy, except for the sharp pain and the fact someone's trying to put pressure on it.

Frantic voices.

"...sir, she's been hit." _Fitz._

"...stay with us Skye." _Simmons_.

"...don't make me lose you too." _Ward._

Before she can ask why the 'too' is tagged onto the end, she slips back into unconsciousness.

* * *

_"Do you ever want kids?" she asks, one night, lazily tracing patterns on his chest. He stiffens._

_"No. I don't think I could do that, anyway. And after... my childhood-" the fact he is talking about his brother is left unspoken "-I don't think I want to chance passing that on."_

_She doesn't protest, because he's set on the idea and she knows that any try at turning it around will only result in conflict. She likes to think she's getting better at that, nowadays, not arguing with him so much, unless, of course, she has to._

* * *

She isn't sure why the voices won't shut up. They're hurting her head. She wants to yell at them, but she can't. The pressure on her shoulder continues.

"...losing too much blood."

"...Ward, I'm sorry."

"...might not make it."

"...got to. It's Skye."

She wants to sigh, but figures it would hurt too much. Only some parts of conversation register, and she figures it's for the best. She might not like what they have to say, after all.

* * *

_Sometimes, they do normal relationship stuff, like her dragging him around shops, or him watching the football with a beer and her pretending that she's interested._

_It's almost these times she treasures the most, because she doesn't have to worry about the fact she's sleeping with her SO, or that she's desperately in love with a man who doesn't love her back._

_It's... easier. _

* * *

She tries to ignore the fact she's still lying on a rocky ground, but then, she hears it, loud and clear, a single, piercing voice.

"Skye. I'm so sorry." he mumbled, his head on her stomach.

"Don't be such a baby." she manages to get out, and he looks up, managing a laugh despite the tears she can see in his eyes.

"Crying over me, robot. Jeez. Think we'll have to fix that." she smirked, before coughing, blood coming out. Ward swallowed.

"Hold on. May and Coulson are coming as fast as they can, okay?"

* * *

_The team finding out was a memory that she held in some of her fondest._

_Simmons had been the first. Her bunk was next to Skye's, so it wasn't hard for her to figure it out. She'd squealed and said she 'always knew it would happen' and made her promise that she'd be the godmother to all their 'cute little babies'._

_(That was what prompted the discussion about children, and though that one was more painful, Simmons' reaction was always a good memory)_

_Fitz hadn't been too pleased, scrunching up his nose and raising an eyebrow at her, asking, deadpan 'you and Ward?' after catching them about to get at it in the kitchen one morning. Ward himself had his head buried in her shoulder, laughing, while Skye shrugged, blushing furiously and replying 'guess I just couldn't keep myself away from these muscles'._

_Coulson had simply told her that she was to make sure they remained professional and to stop trying to have sex on every surface of the plane._

_May had, for the most part, remained completely disinterested, aside from adding, at Coulson's comment that if they had to have sex everywhere, to keep it out of her bunk and the cockpit, please, and thank you._

* * *

She could feel herself slipping away, and it was like he was the only solid thing left.

Why didn't she get that when she'd first seen him? That would've been much more romantic than this whole 'dying' thing.

She put her hand to his face, holding it there for a moment before it slipped. Wasn't like there was much point in that anyway.

"I'm not gonna lose you. Not like I did Frankie-" he murmured, stroking her hair off of her face.

_Oh. His brother._

Her mind supplied the realization. She sniffled.

"Don't think you have a choice." she murmured, coughing again. More blood.

He seemed to swallow in air then, and then looked down at her, saying the words she'd wanted to hear.

"I love you."

"Love you too, Grant." she replied, the use of his first name an attempt at saying goodbye.

He pressed his lips to hers, and she revelled in the pressure of it for a few moments, before everything went dark.

* * *

_She sometimes dreams of a perfect life with him, and images filter into her mind unguarded when she does._

_A wedding day._

_Pregnancy._

_A family._

_All the things she sometimes wants, but then she realizes that in the end what she has is all she wants, that she doesn't have to be Mrs Skye Ward to be happy, she doesn't need to get fat and have sore feet, and certainly not at the age of twenty one, and she already has a family in Simmons, Fitz, Coulson, and even May. She doesn't need those things to be happy because she already _is.

* * *

**Here lies Skye.**

**Beloved friend and lover.**

**She rests forever in our hearts, in death as in life.**

**1993-2014**


	2. Ward

When he heard the shot, he ducked on instinct, the shot narrowly missing him.

When he saw her get hit, and heard the yelp of pain, he almost wished he hadn't, wished that he'd pushed her out of the way as opposed to saving his own skin, but it hadn't occurred to him to do so, instincts taking over and... oh god.

Simmons screamed. He heard Fitz swear. He himself was fighting the urge to drop to his knees, but first... he located the gunman, his target, now, and shot him, straight in the chest, without second thought.]

And then he crumpled, removing his jacket and pressing it on his wound, hoping to god that he wouldn't lose her.

* * *

_He wasn't sure how it started, those fevered nights spent together, nor the cuddling afterwards._

_He's never cuddled before._

_When she tells him she loves him, he panics. But he doesn't say it back._

_He always loses those he loves, and there's a notion in his mind that maybe, if he doesn't say the words, he might get to keep her._

* * *

Fitz got on the comm almost immediately.

"We need medical down here, it's Skye, sir. She's been hit."

Simmons begins talking to her, holding the hand of the side that hadn't been hit, and Ward fights the urge to tell her to go, because she is possibly the only other person in the world who can say they care about her a much as he does (because while the rest of the team cared for her, it wasn't like this).

"C'mon, Skye, wake up. Don't make me lose you too." the last word slips out without his permission, because FitzSimmons don't need to know his personal business, and certainly not the details about his brother.

But they don't notice it, and if they do, they don't mention it, and for that he is grateful.

* * *

_The kids conversation is quite possibly one of the worst of his life. He doesn't know what to say, he stiffens, and he has to think long and hard about his answer to show it isn't that he doesn't want kids with her (in fact, he wouldn't mind kids at all, but he's too scared)._

_The answer he gives is short, sweet, and to the point. But he can't shake the feeling that she's somewhat- disappointed? Dissatisfied? Either way, she isn't pleased by it and he feels awful._

_Much to his relief, she doesn't protest, and they just get on with sleeping, an activity that's much easier when she's there, soft and gentle and _there. _He doesn't know what he'd do without her._

* * *

Simmons is looking concerned. Medical are on their way, but they went through so many warehouses that they're going to have trouble finding them, not to mention the fact that Coulson and May needed to organize help from _the other side of the world _with only Fitz's guidance.

"God, she's losing too much blood..." the young Brit bites her lip, bites back tears, and stares at the shoulder. He wants to scream at her for help, she has a biology degree for god's sake- but he knows that if there was more they could do, she'd do it. They have no equipment and no help.

"I'm so, so sorry, Ward." Fitz adds from where he's sitting, though the pain in his eyes is evident.

"I don't think- she might not make it." Simmons says, her voice breaking on the last syllable, and the engineer gets up, awkwardly shifting to get an arm around her.

"No. You're wrong. She's got to. It's Skye." Ward replies, and tries to ignore the pity in their eyes at that comment.

* * *

_When their relationship is what she calls 'normal', he tries not to revel in the glint in her eyes or the smirk on her face, but it's hard not to, because she always looks so much more beautiful like that._

_But, of course, he doesn't say it. Because that would mean he'd lose her. It always did._

_Grant Ward loving you was not an advantage._

* * *

He ends up with his head on her stomach, Fitz taking over the holding of the jacket on her wound, and he manages to say something more to her, something that sounded even to him broken and like death.

"Skye, I'm so sorry." he croaks out.

"Don't be such a baby." she replies, and he swears that despite the obvious pain in her voice, it's the most perfect sound in the world. His head snaps up almost immediately, and he holds the jacket down again, Fitz moving away with Simmons. Privacy.

"Crying over me, robot? Jeez. Think we'll have to fix that." she says, a smirk appearing on his face, and for a moment it's just back to normal Skye, but then she coughs, and it's blood.

"Hold on. May and Coulson are coming as fast as they can, okay?" he promises. _Not fast enough_ a voice mocked in the back of his head, one that was swiftly warned to shut the hell up.

* * *

_It was obvious when Simmons found out._

_The screaming, girlish and excited, had him flinching and Fitz looking up in confusion, before returning his focus to the book he was reading._

_Fitz was almost embarrassing, though Agent Grant Ward never got embarrassed. Of course not. But it was hard not to be embarrassed when you were having sex with Skye on a counter, laughing and kissing and having a good time (and he was going to clean afterwards, of course), when suddenly Leo Fitz walks in asking if there's any milk left, before blushing, raising an eyebrow with a disgusted 'You and Ward' (and he tries not to be offended by this, he really does), before turning on his heel and walking out. Skye never lets him forget that one._

_Coulson and May had been fairly low-key around Skye. He had, however, later taken Ward into a corner and told him that both he and May were watching him, and that if he made one wrong move, he'd make sure they'd never find his body. _

* * *

It was never supposed to happen. That was the thing, about this job, things weren't supposed to happen but they did and they hurt and you just didn't know what to do with yourself any more. And here she was, lying beneath him, bleeding to death, and he still hadn't told her he loved her, dammit.

He couldn't be sure how much of her strength she used placing her hand on the side of his face, but he was sure it wasn't worth it.

"I'm not gonna lose you. Not like I did Frankie-" he has to break off then, images of his little brother's last day on earth filtering into his brain.

"Don't think you have a choice." she replies, coughing up more blood, and he hates it, seeing her in pain. He wants her to know, he decides, if he's going to lose her then she deserves to know.

"I love you." he gets out, and a smile slips onto her lips.

"Love you too, Grant." she replies, and the use of his first name reminds him that this is her goodbye. He's going to lose her, and he'll never see her again. It's all over.

He kisses her then, softly, and for a moment he almost gets to pretend that it's old times, before he feels a final exhale just below his own nose, and he's kissing the lips of a dead woman.

Simmons lets out a broken sob. Fitz himself sounds like he wants to cry.

Ward just barely keeps himself in check.

* * *

The funeral had been sweet and simple. He, Coulson, Fitz, Simmons and May were the only ones in attendance, other than Fury, a couple of people she'd known at the orphanage, and, much to his chagrin, Miles.

He watches the casket go down, and tries to deny it's her in there. Tries to deny it's his Skye. And then it's a gravestone, and she's gone, and it's just him and Simmons. The young woman throws down a rose, before kissing his cheek.

"I'll... come back later. Say your goodbyes." she says, the tears still in her voice. He kneels down, still in his suit, and closes his eyes.

"I don't know why I'm doing this. Talking to your grave. It's not like it'll bring you back, after all. You're gone, for good, and I just... I don't know what to do, Skye. I guess I'll just have to keep going. Do what I'm doing. I'm not going to move on, I don't think, not for a while. I've lost too much, this time, and functioning, it's gonna be hard."

He swallows, and tries again. "I want you back. I need you back. I love you, and you didn't even get to know until your dying moments. Saying goodbye feels stupid, because I still expect you to be there when I wake up in the mornings. I'd join you, but if there's a heaven out there? I know you'd kick my ass for doing it." he closes his eyes. "Just... I miss you. I always will. And I love you. I wish I could've given you what you wanted. But I was... just a stubborn idiot."

He looks at the words on the stone, and wishes that he could hold her, just one last time, and never let go.

But before he can let his thoughts wander any further, he places down the flowers and gets up, turning on his heel and walking away, leaving only a pale white stone and bluebells.

Bluebells as blue and pure as the sky.


End file.
